WE know Al-Shabaab as a Somali militant group jostling to control Somalia, and sometimes exporting terror to the rest of East
Africa, but it seems their sphere of influence is much wider: The group is
reportedly the inspiration to the infamous “Jihadi John”, the masked Islamic state fighter
with a British accent who has shown in Islamic State videos online been beheading several hostages.

The masked man has been identified as
Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwait-born Briton from a middle class family who grew up in
West London and graduated with a degree in computer programming.

That was until a planned safari to
Tanzania in May 2009 following his graduation from the University of Westminster.
Once they landed in Dar es Salaam, Emwazi, along with two friends, were
detained by police, questioned, and soon deported back to Europe.

Emwazi claimed an officer from the
British domestic security agency, M15, accused the trio of planning to
travel to Somalia through Kenya and join Al-Shabaab, but he denied the
accusation and said M15 representatives had tried to recruit him.

In any case, it seems Emwazi was
“obsessed” by the Somali terrorists; a former Islamic State hostage claimed
that he “made his captives watch videos about Al-Shabaab”.

A 2010 story in the Independent points
to other detentions and interrogations by M15 agents of British Muslims while
on holiday in East Africa; the security service had been accused of “harassing
and intimidating” Britons who travelled to Somalia and returned home.

The story said “Muhammad ibn Muazzam”
– believed to be Mohammed Emwazi –was detained along with two friends and held
for “days” in inhumane detention on the orders of MI5, and “threatened
with beatings by gun-toting members of Tanzania’s security forces.”

Another Briton, Abu Omar, 19, said that
in April 2009 his safari holiday to Kenya was interrupted when the house in
which he was staying was raided by local security officers.

Quoted in the story, Omar claimed he
was held and questioned for four days, also on the basis of intelligence
supplied by MI5.

Emwazi was in the crosshairs of British
security agents after that, prevented from travelling to Kuwait to tie the knot
with a woman there and start a new job, which “incensed” him, and he was again blocked
from taking up a job in Saudi Arabia.

Dead friends in Somalia

It is unclear when he reached Syria and
how, but he has apparently pulled off a deadly re-invention of himself as the notorious masked beheader.

But Somalia, apart from being the place
of his inspiration, has been the place of the deaths of a number of individuals
linked to “Jihadi John”.

Among his associates at that time was Bilal
el-Berjawi, a Londoner of Lebanese origin who was killed by a drone strike in
Somalia three years ago, says this report from the Guardian.

Emwazi and Berjawi were reportedly
members of a loose-knit group of young Muslims from the North Kensington area
of west London, who attended the same mosques and played five-a-side football
together.

Another member of the group, Mohamed Sakr, was killed
in a drone strike in Somalia a few weeks after Berjawi. Although born in the UK, he was a dual UK-Egyptian national; the UK government had stripped him of his British citizenship shortly before he was killed.